FOUR PILLARS OF HARVEST BIBLE CHAPEL

PROCLAIMING
THE AUTHORITY
OF GOD’S WORD
WITHOUT APOLOGY

LIFTING HIGH
THE NAME
OF JESUS
THROUGH WORSHIP

JOHN 4:24

BELIEVING
FIRMLY IN
THE POWER
OF PRAYER

EPHESIANS 6:18

SHARING THE
GOOD NEWS
OF JESUS
WITH BOLDNESS

EPHESIANS 6:19-20

OUR FOUNDATION IS JESUS CHRIST

Our Mission

The core focus of the ministry at Harvest Bible Chapel is to welcome and care for wounded and hurting people where they are in their journey, so that they find purpose and joy in a relationship with Jesus Christ. This is fulfilled as disciples of Jesus Christ are made. God is glorified as we manifest His presence in doing so (2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Corinthians 10:31).
Our obedience to the Lord’s command is revealed in our lives as we worship Christ, walk with Him, and work for Him.

We believe the disciples of Jesus Christ should minister to one another in the local church. It’s not about one or a small number of pastors bearing total responsibility to care for the entire congregation. It’s about all disciples using their God-given spiritual gifts to provide mutual ministry in the context of the vibrant and strong local church. (Ephesians 4:11-12)

Harvest Bible Chapel offers an array of opportunities for every disciple to grow in relationship to Jesus Christ and connect with others. These opportunities include dynamic weekend worship services and church-wide special events as well as a variety of adult, high school, middle school and children’s ministries.

Leadership Team

RANDY WHITELY

Senior Pastor

DOUG DOUGHERTY

Elder

JOHN BOLLMAN

Administrative Director

Staff

GEARY LUTZ

Associate Pastor

JONAH ULLMAN

Worship Director

DIANA VON LOEWE

Administrative Assistant

REBECCA BENNETT

Children’s Ministry Director

MIKE LUTZ

Building Care

Our History

The church had its beginnings back in 1995. A group of people came together to plant a non-denominational church and called themselves Chagrin Valley Community Church. The first meetings took place in a hotel in Wickliffe. The church eventually changed its name to Lake Ridge Church and began meeting in a theatre in 2003.

In the spring of 2008, the church moved again to its present location in Eastlake, Ohio. God blessed the church with growth so that a second suite was secured and the size of the staff could begin to grow.

In 2012, the elders of the church attended Harvest University in Chicago and decided to become an affiliate of Harvest Bible Fellowship. In 2015, we officially joined HBF and changed our name to Harvest Bible Chapel.

After just two years in HBF, the fellowship ended in 2017 and splintered into a number of different fellowships. As a church, we moved back into being an independent organization that is all about becoming a healthy family that seeks to win its children to Jesus and to bring healing and revival wherever the Spirit of the Lord leads us.

We are extremely grateful to the Lord Jesus for all that He has done to bring us to where we are today, and we are excited about going forward with Him, The Good Shepherd.

DOCTRINAL STATEMENT

We believe the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments to be the full record of God’s self-disclosure to mankind. Different men, while writing according to their own styles and personalities, were supernaturally moved along by the Holy Spirit to record God’s very words, inerrant in the original writings. Therefore, those applying themselves to study its literal, historical-grammatical context can accurately understand God’s Word. Scripture is fully trustworthy as our final and sufficient authority for all of life (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21).

We believe in the one living and true God, eternally (John 17:3) existing in perfect unity as three equally and fully divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19-20). Each member of the Godhead, while executing distinct but complementary roles in redemptive history, has precisely the same nature, attributes, and being, and is equally worthy of the same glory and honor and obedience (John 1:1-4; Acts 5:3-4).

We believe God the Father created all things for His glory according to His own will (Revelation 4:11), through His Son, Jesus Christ. He upholds all things by the Word of His power and grace, exercising sovereign headship over all creation, providence, and redemption (Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3).

We believe that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, moved by love in accordance with the will of the Father, took on human flesh (John 1:1, 14, 18). Conceived through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the virgin Mary. He, being fully God and fully man (John 14:8-9), lived a sinless life and sacrificially shed His blood and died on the cross in our place accomplishing redemption for all who place their faith in Him. He arose visibly and bodily from the dead three days later and ascended into heaven, where, at the Father’s right hand, He is now Head of His Body the Church, the only Savior and Mediator between God and man, and will return to earth in power and glory to consummate His redemptive mission (1 Timothy 3:16).

We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that He does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ during this age. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He draws the unredeemed to repentance and faith, and at salvation imparts new spiritual life to the believer, bringing that person into union with Christ and the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit sanctifies, seals, fills, guides, instructs, comforts, equips, empowers, permanently indwells at salvation, and bestows spiritual gifts to the believer for Christ-like living and service (John 16:8; 13:15; Titus 3:5; Ephesians 1:22; 4:11-12; Romans 8:9-17; 12:4-8; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 12:4-5, 11-13, 19; Galatians 5:25; Hebrews 2:1-4; 2 Corinthians 12:12).

We believe that God created mankind—male and female—in His own image and likeness, free of sin, to glorify Himself and enjoy His fellowship. Tempted by Satan, but in the sovereign plan of God, man freely chose to disobey God, bringing sin, death and condemnation to all mankind. All human beings, therefore, are totally depraved by nature and by choice. Alienated from God without defense or excuse, and subject to God’s righteous wrath, all of mankind is in desperate need of the Savior (Genesis 3:1-6; Romans 3:10-19; Romans 1:18, 32).

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, as the substitutionary atonement in our place, and that salvation is found in none other than Jesus Christ. Before Creation, God chose those who would be saved and granted this unearned grace solely based on His sovereign good pleasure. Jesus Christ’s death on the cross was the sole and complete payment for sins, fully satisfying God’s righteous wrath, for each person that turns from sin in repentance and places their faith in Christ alone by grace alone. At salvation each person is made a new creation by the Holy Spirit, declared righteous before God, and secured as an adopted child of God forever. Genuine faith continues in obedience and love for Jesus Christ with a life eager to glorify God and persevere to the end (Romans 8:37-39; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 12:13).

We believe that upon placing one’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, the believer is made part of the Body of Christ, the one universal Church, of which Jesus Christ is the Head. The Scriptures command believers to gather locally in order to devote themselves to worship, prayer, teaching of the Word, fellowship, the ordinances of baptism and communion, service to the local body through the development and use of talents and spiritual gifts, and outreach to the world to make disciples (Ephesians 1:22-23; Acts 2:42-46;
1 Corinthians 14:26; Matthew 28:18-20). Wherever God’s people meet regularly in obedience to this command, there is the local expression of the Church under the watchful care of a plurality of elders. A church’s members are to work together in love and unity, intent on the ultimate purpose of glorifying Christ (Ephesians 4:16).

We believe that Christian baptism is a public declaration of the believer’s salvation in Christ, identifying with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection symbolized by immersion in water. The Lord’s Supper is the united commemoration by believers of Christ’s death until He comes and should be preceded by a careful self-examination (Acts 2:41; Romans 6:3-6; 1 Corinthians 11:20-29).

We believe it is the aim, duty, and privilege of every believer and local church fellowship to glorify God by responding as active participants in the Great Commission call of Jesus Christ to go and make disciples of all nations. We believe the primary focus and priority of this call is centered on efforts that establish, strengthen, and reproduce biblically-based churches, which will then plant churches that plant churches for future generations and God’s glory.

We believe in and expectantly await the glorious, visible, personal, premillennial return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blessed hope of His return has vital bearing on the personal life, service, and mission of the believer (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the saved and the lost. The lost will be raised to judgment and experience eternal wrath in hell. The saved will be raised to eternal joy in the new heaven and new earth in the manifested presence of God (Acts 1:3, 9; Hebrews 7:25-26).